Beautiful Thing

by Sonia Faleiro

  I need not, however, have worried about interrupting Masti. Although we were only two feet away, in a room the size of a closet, we were clearly no distraction.

  Leela and I fell back asleep, and when we woke up we quietly gathered our things for a bath at the unisex hamam we had spied on our way in. We were treading over the sleeping bodies when Leela, in a moment of mischievousness or perhaps it was suspicion, drew back the sheet that covered the faces of Masti and her lover. Masti was shorn of make-up. She was no longer a curious beauty, but a man, just a man, and one with a prominent Adam’s apple. But it was the sight of the boy, holding on to her like he was afraid she would leave without saying goodbye, that made Leela gasp.

  Her face turned angry.

  ‘Bitch,’ she whispered.

  ‘You bitch!’ she raised her voice.

  Masti slept on.

  ‘Randi!’ Leela hissed, running out of the room.

  Nineteen-year-old Abid Khan, said Leela to me when she had calmed down, had been her kustomer—hers!—for over a year now. Oh, he was fascinating, she enthused, as we walked towards the hamam. He was writing a book!

  On what? I asked, taken aback.

  ‘Sex practices,’ she replied. ‘That Masti! She’s a first-class randi more crooked than a jalebi!’ Leela veered off. ‘She doesn’t deserve my friendship.’

  But she’s your mother, I said.

  ‘I have a mother! You’ve met her! She’s not much. But she’s never stuck her dick into one of my kustomers!’

  We started laughing and soon we left Abid Khan and Masti behind.

  I had a feeling Leela didn’t care about Abid Khan at all, just like she didn’t care about her mother’s ‘simple type’. But I guessed that Abid Khan would become the excuse she needed to distance herself from Masti and the spirit of ayashi she so triumphantly embodied.

  After a quick, cold bath we decided to explore the hillside. It proved to be a tough climb and soon I found myself cajoling Leela to change direction; to head downhill instead. Leela smiled at me like I should have known better.

  ‘Just follow na,’ she said. ‘You’ll see such things, things you’ll never forget.’

  So we continued on and first we passed a camp of pilgrims in varying stages of awakeness and sleep, dress and undress, and of these hundreds of people, while some bathed from buckets others cooked breakfast on makeshift stoves, while some tended children or animals, yet others were clustered in conversation, the rise and fall of their many dialects electrifying the air. Then I felt the clench, I inhaled the stench of death, for we had come upon the slaughterhouse set up for the pilgrims, and here stood stacks of carcasses, here flowed rivulets of blood. Then we reached the very top of the hill and I saw what Leela had meant.

  The view from the very edge took my breath away.

  Trees small as a finger, rivers arched like eyebrows, hundreds, no thousands of pools of water, still, colourless and dreamy. And embracing this magical scene, and us, was the sky like I had never seen it before—a vast, wild roar as bold, as blue as the heart of the ocean.

  Later that morning, Masti and Abid Khan joined us in the courtyard for a breakfast of tea, paneer pakoras and jalebis. Masti introduced her new friend to us. Abid Khan was very tall and thin and wore tight black jeans. He was shirtless, but compensated for this with a collection of accessories including earrings, silver rings and a watch that hung limply off his right wrist. He had curly black hair that smelt of jasmine and he wore kohl in his eyes.

  ‘Leelaji!’ he said warmly. Leela responded with a grim smile.

  Nothing about Masti’s manner suggested that she knew she had upset Leela. On the contrary, dressed only in boxer shorts, her chest and face bare, Masti was radiant. There was a lightness to her I hadn’t seen before and Abid Khan must have agreed, for he was as eager to snuggle up to her as he had been the previous night.

  Abid Khan leaned forward, ‘I’m a researcher. I’m researching sex practices.’

  Is that a full-time job? I enquired.

  ‘Job? What job?’ muttered Leela, ‘His job is do number ka kaam.’ Smuggling.

  Abid Khan ignored her. ‘I sell watermelons,’ he said, with a straight face.

  Watermelons?

  ‘And watches.’

  You sell watermelons and watches? That’s an interesting combination.

  ‘He has his own truck,’ explained Masti, animated. ‘Say the police ask him to open his backside. What will they find? Watermelons! Juicy-juicy! But if they throw aside the watermelons then what will they find? Watches! Foreign watches! From China and Korea, Taiwan and Sri Lanka—you name it, the world’s finest watches Abid here sells!’

  When he was not working the petty smuggling line, driving his truck across Bombay, selling watches he claimed were of solid gold and pure diamonds, Abid Khan pursued his research. He had conducted experiments in ‘rose sex, nose sex, back sex, French sex, Italian sex, female and male sex, hijra sex and three-person sex.’

  Very impressive, I said.

  Masti sat back, pleased. So did Leela until she caught Masti’s look of pride. Then her smile collapsed into sourness and she got up and walked away.

  Do you visit dance bars? I asked, watching Leela’s retreating back.

  Abid Khan sat up. ‘Barwalis are devil women I tell you,’ he said vigorously. ‘It’s true what they say, “ladies’ bar jayega, barbad ho jayega.”’ If you visit a ladies’ bar, you will be ruined.

  How so?

  ‘Arre, you go there for some fun, am I right? You have drinks, you become high, you become high you become “hawrany”.’

  Hawrany?

  ‘Yes, wanting sex. Hawrany. You don’t know hawrany?’

  Uh. Yes?

  ‘Yes, you know hawrany?’

  ‘Arre, what hawrany-hawrany?’ grumbled Masti. ‘Leave her alone! Are you yourself hawrany the way you are looking-talking-making eyes at her?’

  ‘No sveetie, nothing like that! I’m just explaining. See, you become high you become hawrany, am I right? You become hawrany you want sex. You want sex you need a girl, but these bar dancers, oh let me tell you, they are not of flesh and blood, they are entirely of nakhra! In a certain kind of bar, one of them will sit next to you and she will say, “Hello hensum, can I use your cell?” or “Hey sveetie, how are you?” and naturals you get excited. But the moment you say, “Hello bootiful, want to come to a hotil with me?” she will start to make all sorts of sounds and faces like she’s a movie star and you are asking for an autograph in the middle of her eating time. And her starting rate is so high an Ambani only can fuck her!’

  How much would a girl like that ask for?

  ‘Any amount that enters her head! Sometimes four thousand rupees, sometimes five, and that doesn’t include the fee for the lodge and for all the food she will make you buy her—like she’s a half-starved goat! And not only is she overpriced, she’s much too sharp! Sharp as a drawer full of knives. Arre, what of that bar dancer who took full control of her “husband’s” bar?’

  What of her?

  ‘She became boss! He became sweeper! Sweeper in her dance bar!’

  He inched forward. ‘Okay, can I be franks?’

  Masti nodded on my behalf. ‘Hahn hahn, bolo bolo. She’s my sister, durrling. You can speak openly.’

  ‘So the other day I get a call from this pimp, a real dirty guy. “Come see my new maal,” he says. I said “fine”. I picked up some whisky—why should I lie? His flat in Mira Road was filthy. And inside, sprawled naked on the bed, was a girl of no more than twelve or thirteen. She was marial, like she’d been starved. No gosht on her bones. I couldn’t even look at her she looked so pathetic. I took out my wallet and threw two hundred rupees on her. Then I walked out. So what will this girl do? Sex work, then the dance bar when she’s about fifteen-sixteen. Then Dubai to dance for gangsters and sheikhs. To fuck them. Get HIV from them. That’s how it goes. At the end of her short career what is left of such a girl? Even if you wanted to love her, she wou
ldn’t let you. Even if you offered her the world—car, clothes, cable TV—she wouldn’t stay with you. She couldn’t; she’s no more human. She’s a ghost.

  ‘I tell you sometimes I feel sorry for these girls. But then one of them plays me for a fool and I realize gayi bhains paani mein, the buffalo has gone into the water. There’s nothing I can do for her, she’s a hopeless case.’

  When we returned from Haji Malang, Leela started her breakaway. She would lie to Masti about why she could no longer come by. ‘I’m having my MC,’ she said two weeks running and so Masti suggested she get herself checked at the mobile clinic. ‘Apsara is ill, she needs me.’ At this, Masti screamed with laughter because plump, rosy-cheeked Apsara radiated good health, and even if she were wasting away Masti doubted Leela cared so much she would relinquish her partying for her mother. Finally Masti decided that Leela was snubbing her and she cut her off. Because she never did anything in half measures, she not only erased Leela’s numbers from her phone, but, snatching her chelas’ phones, from their phones as well. She would sniff when someone asked about Leela: ‘Bitch is probably on all fours somewhere!’

  Leela heard this and she cried bitterly. But she didn’t want to end up like Ameena, alone even in death. She wanted to change—to make herself worthy of a good man and worthy therefore of marriage, even if all it was was a ‘dance bar marriage’.

  When Leela was ready to pick up the results of her HIV test she gave me a missed call. I phoned her right back. ‘Come over,’ she said. I happened to be in the middle of moving house. Can I come tomorrow? I asked.

  ‘No! Don’t come tomorrow!’

  She immediately softened. ‘I’ll call when I’m at the doctor’s. We’ll find out together, okay?’

  PART II

  September 2005

  { 1 }

  ‘Now that you’re unemployed, how do you feel?’

  What happened afterwards was almost forgotten, because Leela lost her job. Rumours about a possible ban on Bombay’s dance bars had begun to swirl in April 2005. Some bar dancers tried not to concern themselves with it, while others were in denial. Leela knew little, and what she knew she dismissed. In her version of the events that would change her life, ‘a man in a turban appeared on TV and accused some fatso of demanding bribes. When the turban turned down his demand, fatso enforced the ban.’

  ‘Turban’ was Manjit Singh Sethi, the president of the FRBOA. ‘Fatso’ was R.R. Patil, the deputy chief minister.

  ‘Of Bombay?’ asked Leela.

  Maharashtra, I replied.

  ‘Turban was always on TV,’ continued Leela. ‘Shouting. Sardars shout a lot! He said Fatso asked him for a bribe in exchange for not shutting down the bars and Fatso said, “Nonsense! No such thing happened.” But he went ahead anyway and announced that he was shutting down the bars because we were bad women—husband thieves! PS said, “Don’t take tension, we Shettys are powerful.” He said Turban was as chalu as any policeman and that Fatso was scared of him. “What of the bribe?” I asked. “We’ll handle it,” he replied. So I thought, “Okay, it’s nothing to me.” Apsara said, “Let’s go back to Meerut.” “Good idea!” I replied, “Go!” But she refused to leave without me. She’s here to stay, I tell you. Curse my luck! Lots of bar girls went on TV, they went on rallies, they jibber-jabbered about how they would suffer if they lost their jobs. I thought, “They’re hungry for attention—bhookis! Let them expose themselves. More kustomers for me!” And every time someone at Night Lovers spoke of the rumours I would bow my head and fold my hands and say, “You are a big person. You know everything. I’m only a simple bar dancer.” Then came June-July and PS kept closing the bar without notice, and on the nights it stayed open the police turned up and PS paid them. One night, I remember so well, he got very angry with them, and with us, and told everyone, “Get out!” So after some ghus-phus the police left and we left too, even though I’d tried to talk to PS. But he’d gone inside his office and refused to open the door. And before I knew it, it was August and one day PS called to me. I told you this, remember?’

  I nodded. He asked you not to come in for work.

  ‘First I made a joke,’ said Leela. ‘“Why? Did Twinkle ask you to fire me?” But PS didn’t laugh. He said, “Go to Meerut. Or take a tour; go to Tirupati. And say a prayer for me too. In fact, you should go to Tirupati. Go with your mother and, if you like, take Priya with you. I’ll give you the money.” “But what happened?” I said. How hot he got with me. With me! He said, “Read the paper, Leela!” So that’s how I knew that Fatso hadn’t been joking. He had closed the dance bars. I turned on the TV and when I saw the news I thought, “Oh, I should have gone on a rally, I should have given interviews! Because at least I speak properly—not like some villager!” Then I thought, “No. Better I worked. Better I saved.” And so the days passed, and then someone gave my number to some TV channel and a reporter-type phoned me and said, “Now that you’re unemployed, how do you feel?” “Too good!” I replied and switched off my phone. And then, nothing. Turban got tired of shouting, I suppose?’

  Sethi and some others decided to fight the law in court, I said.

  ‘Court? What court?’

  The High Court.

  ‘High Court!’

  ‘PS changed,’ sighed Leela. ‘Priya was over all the time. Apsara wouldn’t move out. She said, “How can I abandon you in your time of trouble?” How could she not? My troubles would have halved!

  ‘And then PS wouldn’t take my calls. So one day I went to see him in Night Lovers. He didn’t even look at me; he looked over my shoulder. “Leela?” he said, like he didn’t know Leela was my name! And then he said, “My Mrs has palpitations.” Just like that. So she had palpitations! What could I do? On top of that he said, “Learn to adjust.” Learn to adjust! How much adjusting can one person do? Am I human or not? No one has adjusted more than me, let me tell you, and I’m not showing off, it’s the truth!’

  The Bombay Police (Amendment) Act, 2005, was implemented in August that year. It banned dance performances in eating houses, permit rooms or beer bars—all synonyms for dance bars—that were rated three stars or less. In other words, while dancing was banned in bars like Night Lovers and Rassbery, it was permitted to continue in high-end luxury hotels. The bill had been introduced by R.R. Patil, at the time the deputy chief minister and home minister of Maharashtra, and it extended to the entire state. Patil had never before spoken up or against dance bars, but in April that year he initiated a campaign of vociferous denunciation, calling them ‘dens of criminals’ and ‘pickup points’ for ‘prostitutes’ that were ‘likely to deprave the public morality’.

  Patil’s emphasis on morality led many, including the press, to conclude that he was using the idea of social cleansing the way some politicians used war: as a diversion from the downturn in every area of public life. More than half of Bombay’s population, then nearly eighteen million, lived in slums. According to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., a third of this number had no access to clean drinking water. Two million had no toilet.

  These figures were real to me: I lived near the beach, and every morning dozens of men and boys walked over from wherever they lived to defecate on the sand. Women came out at night.

  There was nothing democratic about these figures. At this same time, Bombay was home to India’s largest number of dollar millionaires. It was benefiting from an economic boom of 8 per cent and drawing comparisons with New York, Moscow and Shanghai.

  The truth was that despite Bombay’s sporadic experiments with intolerance it has traditionally enjoyed a cosmopolitan and animated nightlife. As early as the 1800s the French traveller Louis Rousselet noted with delight how ‘the refreshment rooms in the city’s taverns [were] thronged with Europeans and Malays, with Arabs and Chinese’, and how ‘far into the night the songs resounded’. City historian Sir Dinshaw Wacha wrote that the district contained ‘a large number of low-class taverns’, which he deemed as ‘quite unfit for the reception
of ladies’ and ‘populated by newly joined cadets’. In the 1900s, cabarets were en vogue and in the mid-1960s, the dancer Joyce Lee, alias Temiko the Tomato, was adored and is still spoken of among the older set, for in performing ‘she left her breasts open to view’. It was during this time that Kamatipura flourished with brothels. Its sex workers were French and Polish, Russian and Austrian and they had come to the city by ship, and it was ships too that brought their customers—sailors who paid a few annas for their pleasure.

  It was the liberalism and the politics of the 1960s that eased Prohibition and created what was known as the permit era. The policy change had been encouraged by Chief Minister V.P. Naik, a modern, forward-thinking, pipe-smoking Congressman who enjoyed the rifle range. The government revenue earned through liquor sales was doubly important because Maharashtra was dotted with sugarcane distilleries which provided molasses, the primary base for the manufacture of rum. Naik assuaged his more conservative colleagues by pointing out that the permit era would also curtail crime, ending the brewing, transport and sale of illicit liquor for illegal bars.

  And yet, in 2005, despite the highly public resistance from the unions of bar owners and bar dancers, the liberal media and social activists, the bill that would ban dancing in bars received unanimous political support, across party lines. Less than a year later, however, it was repealed by the High Court on the grounds that it violated the dancers’ right to equality and their freedom to practise an occupation or profession. The court condemned the government’s discriminatory behaviour and directed the commissioner of police to investigate allegations that representatives of Patil had demanded a bribe from Sethi and the FRBOA. The state government appealed the judgment in the Supreme Court and the Court decided to stay the operation of dance bars until it delivered its verdict. When this book went to press, no decision had been made.